Grenade

Unlike every other chapter in the novel, which is from the perspective of either Hideki or Ray exclusively, Chapter 23 rapidly switching back and forth between their points of view. This creates rising tension as both characters sprint away from danger and toward each other. Their emotions and behavior mirror each other’s: Both Hideki and Ray are terrified and overwhelmed as they flee, experiencing an almost identical moment of terrified escape. The figurative idea of mirroring becomes literal when they run into each other and see the other as a kind of alternate-universe reflection. The description of the moment emphasizes their similarities:

Hideki was dazed for a moment, but when he shook off his surprise, he found himself staring at a young man wearing an American soldier’s uniform. Ray was equally dazed, and when he got his breath back, he found himself staring at a young boy wearing a Japanese soldier’s uniform (137).

The repeated words and grammatical constructions (“dazed,” “found himself staring,” “young,” “soldier’s uniform”) in these sentences link Hideki and Ray even further.

Other consonances link the protagonists as well: Both characters are moved by the photo of the students in the destroyed classroom, and both are struck by the Okinawan woman’s beautiful blue kimono. Hideki imagines taking a photo foregrounding this garment; similarly, on Kakazu Ridge, Ray notes the same woman, wearing “the most beautiful blue dress […] covered with white flowers, white like fluffy clouds on a sunny summer day in Nebraska” (133).

Gratz structures his novel in an unusual way: One protagonist kills the other, although neither is demonized in this exchange. Gratz draws attention to the randomness of death during war; Ray could have shot Hideki before Hideki deployed his grenade, or both might have hit their targets. By connecting Ray and Hideki through their emotions, physical actions, and by using the literary technique of repetition, the novel presents them as kindred spirits—an expression that becomes literal when Hideki feels that Ray’s mabui has become a part of him.

The novel frequently sets up a juxtaposition seeing the enemy as monsters and as human beings. IJA propaganda depicts Americans as monstrous, in contrast to Japanese soldiers, who are depicted as brave and heroic. Instead, Hideki discovers that there are monsters on both sides. He develops a fear of Japanese soldiers after seeing a lieutenant in the cave strap the dynamite to an Okinawan mother and being threatened by Private Maeda. At the same time, when an American soldier attacks Hideki with a flamethrower, Hideki notes the soldier’s bestial nature, as evidenced by his “wild eyes—blazing, crazy eyes like the ones Hideki had seen on the lieutenant in the cave” (129).

On the other hand, once Hideki identifies Ray as the soldier from his sister’s classroom, Hideki can no longer see Ray as a faceless, monstrous enemy. He is moved by the fact that Ray kept photographs of a Japanese soldier and the schoolchildren in his pack, which illustrates that US soldiers have a spiritual side: “Did Americans know about mabui? Was this soldier carrying the pictures with him so these people’s spirits would be protected and preserved? Hideki hadn’t thought the Americans would care about things like that.” (149). Other encounters with US troops force Hideki to reassess his understanding: “[T]he Americans had treated his wounds. He’d seen them be monsters, but he’d seen them be kind too” (172).

Hideki’s skepticism of the war increases and his loyalty to Japan wanes. He furiously throws away the pictures of the emperor: “He’d believed everything they’d told him. Swallowed their insults and their lies. And for what? […] There was nothing left to fight for, and certainly nothing left to die for” (128). Hideki’s only motivation now is to survive and find his sister. Hideki’s newfound ambivalence creates profound compassion for the dead: Hideki feels “a shaking sadness” (142) after killing Ray. The experience is nothing like the exciting honor it was made out to be during his graduation ceremony, “but now that Hideki had done it, now that he had actually taken another human being’s life, he felt a great yawning emptiness inside” (142). To fill that emptiness, Hideki relies on the rituals of Okinawan Spirituality, reenacting one of his sister’s ceremonies with the help of an older Okinawan woman, a tie to the prewar past and previous generations. Later, Hideki apologizes while connecting with Ray’s mabui: “‘I’m sorry, Rei,’ Hideki said. ‘I didn’t know what I was doing. I was afraid, and my fear turned me into a monster’” (159).